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Flashback
Education: the rock and
roll years
Ageing rocker Les Walton reminisces
1954 The Flea Pit
Cinemas were always called ‘picture houses’
or ‘the pictures’ in the 1950s. Our village
picture house was affectionately known
as ‘the flea pit’. More than the Co-op and
chapel, the picture house was the heart of
our village.
There were three shows each week, plus
Saturday morning ‘children’s cinema’. The
adventure serial was the highlight of the
morning. There were classics which still occur
in the cinema. Zorro, Superman, Buck Rogers,
Batman, and Flash Gordon. Every week I
would sit, feeling quite niggled when the hero,
who the week before had actually fallen off the
cliff, was nowhere near the edge during this
week’s episode.
Children’s matinees had been shown in
British cinemas since the 1920s. After the
Second World War, educationalists raised
objections to the nature of the films being
screened, leading to the ‘Wheare Report’ into
juvenile cinema-going in 1950. One result was
certificate. X certificates were given for many
reasons. For example The Battleship Potemkin
was rejected for inflammatory subtitles and
Bolshevik propaganda in 1926 and rated X in
1954 and finally PG in 1987.
In 1954 Saturday morning at the ‘flea pit’
was just plain madness. The contrast with
the cane-imposed behaviour in school was
dramatic. Every week Jake Wilson, with his
twin brother, would flick peanuts into the
projection beam and shout “it’s snowing”.
Billy Sterling was once thrown out for peeing
on the floor in the back seats and attempting
to float a lollipop stick to the front row.
My father, mother, sister and I would go
to the cinema every Friday night. We would
shuffle along the upstairs front row, waiting
patiently as ‘Auld George’ would unscrew his
wooden leg so we could get to our seats.
Everyone would have their own favourite
seats. Fred the barber always sat in the back
row downstairs. One night as my father was
finding our seats he accidently knocked
the creation of the X certificate, replacing the
H certificate. In 1954 it meant “Suitable for
those aged 16 and over”.
To me and my Saturday morning cinema
gang it was incredibly frustrating to know
that Killers from Space and Menace from
Outer Space were rated X certificate. Today
these films would be considered to be
only requiring a Parental Guidance (PG)
George’s wooden leg which fell off the
balcony and hit Fred on the head. That
wouldn’t have been so bad, but Fred fell off
his seat, and his watch strap caught in the bra
of a local beauty. The house lights then came
on, accompanied by the usual stamping and
shouting. Without doubt if the incident had
been made into a film it would have been X
rated.
88 | Summer 2014